Google-backed project aims to teach computers regret

Google has been known to pump money into all kinds of high-tech research projects at computer science departments all over the world. In this case, a group of researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel are working on technology that will teach computers to feel “regret” for their decisions. The goal is to allow computers to learn from their mistakes when they’re presented with the same or similar decisions in the future.

The aim of the project is to enable artificial intelligences (AIs) to manage the decision-making process when they’re presented with choices, and to remember logically whether or not the choice ended in success or failure. “Regret” is something of a misnomer, since the goal isn’t to make computers “feel” anything so much as learn from their mistakes and minimize the probability they’ll make an unsuccessful or inefficient choice in the future.

Google has put some weight behind the project because the technology could prove useful in their own processes. Google’s algorithms dig through millions of web sites, e-mails, advertisements, and other data every day, and their pre-programmed systems have to decide the good from the bad. Google’s perspective is that any technology that can make those decision processes more efficient and successful is a good one to have. Google has high hopes that the technology will improve their AdWords and Adsense advertising products.

The researchers also note that developing decision technology like this could improve other areas of computing. Network management systems would be able to more efficiently route and prioritize traffic on the Internet or across corporate networks, for example. Load balancing systems would be more able to effectively manage high load without slowing down.

While this all sounds like simple probability analysis, the team at Tel Aviv University hope to make the process real-time and self-adjusting, without the need for human intervention in any significant way. Additionally, the goal is to give AIs the ability to learn from their experiences and use that knowledge to inform new and different decisions, even if they’re unrelated to what the system has already seen. The technology is still years away, but with Google’s backing, the 20-person team has high hopes to deliver on the promise in the near future.